CHEYENNE, Wyo. — On a 16-mile trek off a mountain, a young horse lay down — she could not go another step. The mare looked deathly ill to the men leading a train of horses out of a base camp for hunting and fishing excursions.
In a race against the weather last fall, they left behind the horse they named Valentine to get the rest of the animals down. When they went back for her the next day, she had vanished into the vast Wyoming wilderness.
Six weeks later, a worker spotted the 6-year-old mare, and her owners helped guide the healthy horse out through a storm and deep December snow. Not only is this grizzly bear country, a domesticated animal such as Valentine had to find food and survive the harsh winter conditions.
She didn’t even need veterinary care. But when the story spread last week, it unleashed a fervent debate over whether the outfitting company did the right thing in leaving the horse, did all it could to find her or should have put her down to spare her suffering.
It has culminated in a state criminal investigation that aims to find out if the outfitter’s actions were cruel or helped lead to what some call the miraculous survival of an animal that’s iconic in the American West.
B.J. Hill, who owns Swift Creek Outfitters and the horse, said he has received angry phone calls from across the country.
“People are so quick to judge,” Hill said in a telephone interview from his ranch. “Who knows what’s going to happen. It’s not over with yet”
Hill, who owns 125 horses, said Valentine is doing well and is happy. It’s unclear why she got sick.
Jackson resident Joan Anzelmo- is among those raising questions about why Valentine was left behind and whether enough was done to find her.
“I’m a horse person, and I just despair at the thought of that animal being left out in the deep backcountry with all the risks that occur for people or for animals and in one of the toughest winters that we’ve had,” Anzelmo said.
It is considered humane to put down a horse that’s severely injured or disabled by old age. Based on initial information that Valentine was near death, Anzelmo and others say it might have been better to put her down than let her suffer alone.
Hill said the wranglers did not have firearms, but even if they did, he didn’t see the sense of shooting a young horse and giving it no chance to survive.
Anzelmo said it is not the first choice but leaving it alone was not acceptable.
